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Two students die at coast

The South Eugene High School seniors are swept away from an outcropping at the south end of Yachats

By Sherri Buri McDonald

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011, page A1

YACHATS — Two South Eugene High School seniors drowned after being swept into the Pacific Ocean near Yachats on Saturday.

The teens, Connor Ausland, 18, and Jack Harnsongkram, 17, were on a retreat of more than a dozen students and adults involved in the “Mr. Axeman” pageant, which each year raises thousands of dollars for the Children’s Miracle Network, Eugene school district officials said.

Ausland and Harnsongkram were two of the 10 contestants in this year’s pageant.

On Saturday afternoon, they were among a group of teens on a rocky outcropping near the Adobe Resort at the south end of Smelt Sands State Park when they were swept out to sea and unable to return to shore, the Oregon State Police said.

Emergency responders, which included a helicopter and two motor lifeboats from local U.S. Coast Guard stations, recovered Ausland’s body, but Harnsongkram was still missing Saturday night. Search efforts by the Yachats Fire Department and the U.S. Coast Guard will resume today, state police said.

“We lost two of our finest young men today,” said Randy Bernstein, principal of South Eugene High School.

He met with and offered support to a shocked and exhausted group of students and parents in the school’s cafeteria after they returned from the coast Saturday night.

Outside in the school’s parking lot, more than 100 students huddled in somber, unnatural silence, broken only by sobs.

Students clung to blankets and one another as they grieved for their lost classmates.

“We’re fortunate to have a really solid community of friends and family to support one another,” Bernstein said. “We’re putting together plans for staff to support our students through the weekend and on Monday.”

Kerry Delf, Eugene School District spokeswoman, said the school will provide support and grief counseling to all South Eugene High School students “because this is the kind of event that can have an impact on all of the students of the school — those who were close friends (of Ausland and Harnsongkram) and also those who just saw them in the halls.”

Both of the young men were “very good students, well-liked and well-respected,” Bernstein said. “Both of them would have made a fine ‘Mr. Axeman.’ All 10 of the young men are really great kids.”

Ausland, a striking blond at 6-foot-3 inches, played on the varsity basketball team. He listed as “likes” on his Facebook page: “Barack Obama, (actor) Will Smith, sleeping, flipping the pillow over to get to the cold side, and pretending to text in awkward situations.”

Harnsongkram, a brown-eyed young man with an easy smile, was described by friends as a kid that everybody liked: rambunctious, funny, passionate about the outdoors, caring and inspirational.